Later years
Finally, at the meeting on January 29, 1908, it was proposed to definitively study the relocation of the headquarters. At the same meeting, Mr. Pablo García Ogara was elected as the new president of the entity. The proposal gained momentum, and at the meeting held on February 28, 1909, a Technical Committee was appointed to select the best possible locations.
On October 1 of that same year, the competition to decide the design of the building and its interior spaces was resolved. Out of all the proposals, three were selected, and ultimately, the design submitted by Mr. Emiliano Amann was chosen, with minor modifications, as the one to be constructed.
In May 1910, the first stone of the new construction was laid, and the works began in October. The extraordinary building that can be admired today took two and a half years to complete. The construction was officially finished on January 24, 1913.
During the 75 years that it remained in Plaza Nueva, the Sociedad Bilbaína witnessed significant events.
The Second Carlist War (1846-1849) had little impact on Bilbao and, consequently, on the Sociedad Bilbaína. However, during the Third Carlist War (1872-1876), the city endured a terrible siege by the forces of the Carlist claimant. This siege, the fourth of those experienced during the 19th-century Civil Wars, lasted from December 28, 1873, to May 2, 1874. During the siege, members requested that two rooms on the upper floor be fortified so they could visit the Sociedad Bilbaína without being exposed to shelling. Despite these measures, a shell hit and destroyed the billiard table, one of the most enduring symbols of the Sociedad Bilbaína. The table was immediately repaired.
During this period, the Bilbaína club also witnessed significant historical events, such as the February Revolution of 1848 (notable across Europe, particularly in France with the fall of the monarchy); the American Civil War (1861-1865); the coup d'état that deposed Isabel II in 1868; the Cuban War (1868-1878); the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871); the loss of colonies in 1898; the Boer War in South Africa (1899-1902); and the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905).
However, not everything was negative. La Bilbaína was an exceptional witness to one of the brightest periods in the city's history. During the final decades of the century, Bilbao experienced the most spectacular economic, social, and cultural growth of its hundreds of years of history.
As for the internal events experienced by the Sociedad Bilbaína, here is a chronological summary of some of the most notable.
